Sofa so good

Our new sofa arrived this afternoon. (The delivery van turned up at virtually the same second as the other van which was bringing our online-ordered groceries, but fortunately nobody got in anyone else’s way and comic scenes full of pratfalls and stunt collisions were thankfully avoided.)

The sofa delivery men had our new tasteful charcoal two-seater up the stairs and in the house in less than a couple of minutes and weren’t even out of breath.

Put us to shame, they did 🙂

So, about our old sofa then, as you are doubtless dying to know.

You can see the old settee if you look at Smoky’s gallery of pictures (just click on the link at the top of the home page). It was a green tough-as-old-boots two-seater with a relatively high back compared to most modern sofas. Firm but comfortable cushions and big chunky bun feet almost as big as your head.

It had started to smell a bit musty, according to Shana. Well, we had owned it for fourteen years, and it was pretty old when we bought it in 2003. We had just bought Ezra the inflatable skeleton (who we still have). One of the blokes who delivered the old sofa wanted to take Ezra home with him but we politely declined.

Tired of the musty aroma, Shana ordered the new sofa last week, and we put the old one out for collection by the local recycling depot.

I make it sound so easy, don’t I?

What actually happened was this. First, we huffed and puffed and almost destroyed the door frame trying to heave the old sofa out of the house. Then we dragged the green beast down a flight of concrete stairs towards the outside world until we got to the last door in the communal area between the two blocks of maisonettes where Waffle Towers is located.

Since we moved here in 2007, the main entrance door has been changed. Not only must you now be a weightlifter to stand any chance of hauling it open, but the door is actually narrower than the flimsy one that used to be there.

What I mean to say is, we got stuck. Almost permanently wedged in the doorway.

At one point I went back upstairs to fetch a ripsaw, as I was convinced that the only way we would get the sofa out would be to dismember it.

Luckily, Mr Saw was not required. While I was upstairs Shana had done some rapid mental trigonometry and worked out the correct angle at which the sofa could be made to leave the building.

So gold star to Shana. And what happened next?

Well, the very next day, just before lunch, a big green dustcart turned up and two he-men in hi-vis jackets he-manhandled the doomed sofa to the back of their truck. At the push of a button Biffa (for it was indeed that very same Dustcart of the Apocalypse) ate my sofa.

They came back ten seconds later for the cushions. And the truck ate those too.

Then, with barely a burp, it rumbled off into the distance, leaving only a faint whiff of mustiness to linger in the air.